


Gun in My Hand (Pull the Fucking Trigger)

by RottingBirds



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ishbalan | Ishvalan, Angst, Edward Elric Is A Little Shit, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Ishbalan | Ishvalan Riza Hawkeye, POV Roy Mustang, Period-Typical Racism, Suicide Attempt, Xingese Roy Mustang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RottingBirds/pseuds/RottingBirds
Summary: Roy Mustang has tried to kill himself, and Edward Elric has not.That is the fine line drawn between them that he absolutely refuses to remove.OrThey call her traitor, and they call her spy. They call her rancid slurs that make Roy want to cut their tongues (Riza is half Ishvalan, and Roy is half Xingese, but the shape of his eyes cannot compare to the color of hers).
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Gun in My Hand (Pull the Fucking Trigger)

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read from either an FMA or FMAB perspective. 
> 
> This started out as a way for me to take a break from the longer FMA(B) fic I’m currently drafting, but the plan for a 700 word fic sort of spiraled out of control and now we have my usual 2k one shot lol. It’s inspired by some other elements of the draft so i think that’s why I was able to write it so quick. But I’m left with this big, rambling, too many commas and too many run on sentences mess. Enjoy :))
> 
> Obvious warnings for suicide!!

Roy Mustang has tried to kill himself, and Edward Elric has not. 

That is the fine line drawn between them that he absolutely refuses to remove—placed by his own hands dragging through dirt and wrapping around a gun aimed at his own head. 

Roy Mustang has done this routine before and he’ll be damned before he lets a kid do it too. 

“Impulsive decisions lead to unstable consequences,” he had said once to Fullmetal early on when they’d first met each other, and it makes him sound like some smartass who knows what he’s talking about but this little piece of his own advice does not apply to himself. Everything dealing with this stupid gun he does on impulse.

Decide to commit on impulse, find someplace shitty enough his body won’t be a nuisance on impulse, and then sit around for a couple hours until he eventually tries on impulse or gives up on impulse. Unstable consequences his ass. That isn’t what he wants for his subordinate. It hasn’t ever mattered that he does this shit to himself, and it’s a stupidly cliche thought but maybe it never will.

Roy sighs and stares at where the gun is holstered next to his coat before raking a trembling hand through his hair. The room he’s renting out certainly does meet the requirement of Shitty, that’s for sure. And yes, maybe renting a hotel for these kinds of things is impolite to the owners but losing this dump of a room won’t be a all that significant on them. Besides, it can do with some renovations.

He sighs again while getting up to reach for the weapon. 

_People should be thankful he manages to be so considerate with this._

The thought is fleeting, and humorously dark but he laughs at it anyways. If he never makes Fuhrer comedian is always on the table.

There’d been rats crawling in the bathtub when he’d opened the shower curtain in the tiny bathroom tucked into the corner earlier. The ceiling isn’t better by any means either. It’s so waterlogged he thinks the roof might’ve fallen on him any minute. 

This is the type of shit-hole resting place he deserves, he guesses. Roy gingerly extracts the gun from where it rests. He has no plans on staying here for long, and even if he did, it’s not as if he’s in any position to bring himself to care about its state. He can’t offer any extra money the military has lying around to some rundown family-owned hotel. He isn’t a charity. He’s just some suicidal douche who can’t seem to catch a fucking break. 

Hughes is dead, the Fuhrer is a Homunculus, and Riza is… 

That stops him for just a second. He wraps his hand into the fabric of his shirt and the laugh dies just as quickly as it bubbled out. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Stumbles back into the creaking wood of the chair, and then takes another because these are still the last things he will do with his life. Living has always been as easy as that. Breathing and listening to his heart beat in his ears, but Roy is still struggling to feel alive (what use is a body anyways?). He tries to squeeze the memories away.

Riza is half Ishvalan.

He drops the gun by his feet like he’s been shocked and pushes the palms of his hands to his eyes.

Riza is half Ishvalan, and Roy is half Xingese, but the shape of his eyes cannot compare to the color of hers. 

God, they’ve both killed so _many._

He couldn’t even look at her the first week after they’d found out without wanting to vomit (the way her hair sometimes glowed white in the moon. The bridge of her nose. The tint of red in her eyes that is so obviously Ishvalan he’s baffled how he’s somehow missed it all this time).

He had been there, at the very least when the information came out. Without her permission and without her knowledge Bradley had made an announcement of her heritage, and it spread through their ranks like a wildfire (and trust him when he says it because he knows flames better than anyone. It is untamed, uncontrollable, and too large for either of them to put out). Roy doesn’t think he’s ever seen her so openly afraid. 

She collapsed onto him a month into it, hyperventilating and shaking and pressing herself so far into his chest he couldn’t do anything but cling to her and try his best to hold her together. 

The people in the very military she’s worked her whole life to serve had turned on her in an instant. Roy has experienced the things that come with looking the way he does—everyone who is not fully of Amestrian blood has dealt with it since birth—but he’s never had to deal with the vile things they throw at her. 

They call her traitor, and they call her spy. They call her rancid slurs that make Roy want to cut their tongues. But Riza is not weak and she knows how to hold her own. She chewed them out and spat it back up easily each time. Even drew her gun up to one person’s forehead and dared them to repeat themselves. She’s far from weak, but the guilt is eating away at her. At both of them.

Each gasping breath rattled in her chest, filled with self-loathing, and shame, and something indescribable. Roy feels it too. Feels it all the time. Riza should not be comforted by him, not when he’s killed so many of them. So many her people. Not when he has so many of their lives carried on his chest to suffocate him in a last ditch effort to kill him.

But he had whispered to her anyways, and held her close, and kissed her when she came up for air. He had cried with her then (and she had kissed back). Riza is so impossibly lucky that the purge of Ishvalan soldiers within the Amestrian military is a law that’s forbidden now. But Roy does not forgive. He’s never wanted to kill Bradley more than he had then. 

Roy slowly removes his hands from his face and reaches back down to pick up the gun he’d dropped. 

The weight isn’t always the same with these sorts of things but the feel of it in his hands is familiar enough. Heavy. Metallic. Deadly. The way Riza and him use the weapon are so vastly different it makes his heart ache. She does not do this. Fullmetal does not do this. Hughes had died to one of these. 

Why does he keep pulling it when he needs an out?

Roy has climbed up a steep cliff to get where he is yet he’s tried over and over again to purposefully lose it all. He’s bargained, and lied, and used children that—despite the way they vehemently state it’s _their_ choice (and theirs alone)—he has still condoned to lead a life far too big for them. He is fire, he is burning, and the Elric’s walk too close to his flame. 

Roy has always flickered patiently in wait, and there’s a gas leak in the tiny house he calls home. Or maybe it’s a combustible liquid. A bomb. A change in oxygen levels. The weight of the gun is heavy in his hands. The metaphor doesn’t really matter when all he can do is grow and destroy and injure whoever dares stray close enough. Whoever dares stay. 

Roy grits his teeth. 

The Elrics are always talking about Equivalent Exchange. It’s the philosophy they live by, Alchemists through and through. So why can’t they see that they are confined to a promise that has cost them? Forced them to owe something to him? They’ve already given up a life unbound by military rule. Gave their childhood to him open handed and let him carry that as his burden. Roy can’t fathom how they can continue to not see that he is burning them too. 

Sometimes, it eats away at him when he watches those kids fight. They dance between bullets like it’s just a recital and Roy is just their teacher. In some twisted sense he has to admit there is some truth to it. Because Roy has taught Fullmetal everything he knows about being a dog to the state, and Edward has taught his own brother in turn. Roy is too scared to admit he thinks Fullmetal might pick this nasty habit up too. It’s fucked. Roy is worried there’s still more they’re willing to cough up and give to him just because they want something that badly (and damn those kids because _he_ doesn’t want what they can offer).

Roy is tethered to a world where he must watch those he cares for die for his sake. Burn for his sake. 

Perhaps (and it isn’t the first time he’s thought it) this is his own personal hell he’d set up for himself when he first took an Ishvalan life. There was no turning back then, he knew he’d passed a threshold he could no longer return from. The Ishvalan’s may have their religion but Roy does not, and he is cowardly. If he can’t pull the trigger then this is what he lives with. A pin in a grenade not meant to be pulled. It might be the price he comes with but it is also his punishment. 

He turns the gun to his chin. Roy always hesitates when he gets to this point but he refuses to let himself do it now. He takes in a shaky inhale of mold, and mildew, and metal and bites his tongue. There’s no use in screaming when no one is around to hear it. This is his end. Twenty-nine years old, in crummy hotel in central and on his eighth suicide attempt. 

His finger twitches.

This time it better fucking work. 

Before he has a chance to exhale, he wraps his other hand around the handle as tightly as he can, and he pulls the trigger. 

_Click_. The sound reverberates through his head and bounces off the empty space of his room. 

He refuses to open his eyes. His breath is caught in his throat.

He pulls it again. 

_Click._

No. This isn’t happening. There’s no possible way, this isn’t what he asked for. No, no nono _nononono—_

So he does it again. And again. And again until his finger is aching and the cold barrel of the gun warms under his skin. The leather handle is slick with his sweat.

He does not die.

It’s so fucked Roy might laugh again if he didn’t feel like breaking down. 

“Damn idiot,” he breathes out before finally letting his hand go limp to drop the god awful thing onto his lap. He stares at it with a vile hatred and something close to despair. “Roy Mustang, you are the worlds biggest fuck up. Damn you.”

Because the gun is not loaded. 

And if he’s being honest, Roy thinks it’s a sick joke. No matter how many people he kills he just can’t seem to get it to work on himself. 

He pushes out of the chair and walks with weak knees to clean up the mess he’s made of the room in his short stay. The gun is put back in its holster, his arms pull through the sleeves of his uniform, and he hurries out to the main lobby of the hotel where he pays the crabby, old lady for his stay. 

_Come to terms with it, bastard. You get to live another day._

When he pushes open the door a small ring of the bell alerts whoever is outside. Roy stops on the top step before he can go any further.

Fullmetal greets him with a small smile and a wave. 

Jeez, he’ll never understand how this kid manages to track him down each time he leaves. 

Ed beams. “Hey, Colonel! Hawkeye wants to see you for something, she had me come find you,” Fullmetal says to him before turning on his heel to head for a car parked on the side of the road. It’s military issued, sleek and black. 

“—lady keeps forgetting I don’t know how to drive so I had Breda give me a lift. Not sure what you’re doing in such a shitty place with all that money you have but it’s none of my business what girls you fu—uh—I mean, what you’re doing.” Fullmetal quickly catches himself and looks over his shoulder to give him a sheepish look that somehow manages to be both apologetic and not at the same time. 

Roy smiles back and he’s a bit taken aback at how genuine it is. He should be dead right now. He’d rather prefer it, actually, but for some reason it lacks the sort of truth it held. 

He wants to see Riza again. 

“Right back at you, Runt” he says but there’s no malice to it, and it is amusing how quickly Fullmetal turns red and sputters out words of rage. He’ll have to do that more often. Roy just pushes past him and slips into the car where Breda gives him a cheesy smile. 

And that’s the end of it. 

(Riza kisses him when they meet back up like she can tell what he’s done, but Roy refuses to let her say it out loud. He already has the same speech from the other three times she had found out memorized. He knows. God, he knows. When they pull apart he cries in her arms and it’s her turn to hold him together).

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t ever write romance fics (if you can even begin to call this a romance fic. I’m not sure, I don’t read them either lolol) any sort of criticism is welcome!


End file.
